There was what sounded nearly like a movie machine gun, said Rick Adams, emergency management coordinator. It was the sound of rocks hurled at 100 mph hitting the windows.

There were four Port Aransas city directors who had taken shelter that afternoon, choosing a University of Texas Marine Science Institute building made to withstand 200 mph winds.

The idea was to be nearby when Hurricane Harvey passed, and immediately launch search-and-rescue efforts forresidents who chose to remain in town despite a mandatory evacuation.

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Happy Newman (left) and Tammy Newman wait at a shelter after Hurricane Harvey landed in the Coast Bend area on Saturday, Aug. 26, 2017, in Port Aransas, Texas.(Photo: Gabe Hernandez/Caller-Times)

They planned for a Category 1 or 2 hurricane. The worst case scenario was a Category 3, based on what had been the best predictions of the storm’s power.

But as the hours wore on, so Hurricane Harvey grew in the churning gulf waters, blowing past Category 3 and swelling into a Category 4.

It was too late to leave, even if they'd wanted to.

The storm mangled the small fishing town and tourist haven, leaving behind wind-whittled homes, twisted metal and boats scattered everywhere.

Six days later, the men told their story from the safety of the civic center, now converted into an emergency operations center.

The four — McIntosh, Adams, Port Aransas’ City Manager David Parsons and a building inspector — hadn't expected what eventually arrived. At 3 p.m. the winds were the speed of a tropical storm. By 5, however, they were worse. McIntosh called his wife and family. They wouldn’t hear from him again for roughly 16 hours.

The electricity went.

Within a few hours, windows began to blow out.

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A woman sleeps on a cot after she evacuated to a shelter after Hurricane Harvey landed in the Coastal Bend area on Saturday, Aug. 26, 2017, in Port Aransas, Texas.(Photo: Gabe Hernandez/Caller-Times)

Opening one of the dorm doors to investigate, they “were basically sucked into the room,” McIntosh recalled. They fought to get back into the hallway.

From insidethe building, they saw sheet-like objects flying by, Adams said. It was the disintegrating roof of a building. Eventually, the rain’s intensity masked what was thrown by the storm.

McIntosh questioned whether he and the others would survive.

They did. And at daybreak, it was time to start the search-and-rescue.

Emerging from their shelter, they found their cars damaged. They opted to drive McIntosh’s work truck, a Chevy Tahoe. Its windows were shattered, the interior drenched. The driver’s door wouldn’t shut, so McIntosh just held onto it as he drove.

The scene in town read possible fatalities: RVs overturned, buildings destroyed, boats in the road and what Adams termed “an indescribable number of power lines down.” They drove over them, completely against what McIntosh himself had taught in classes. There were no other options, he said.

Because 80 to 100 people had declined to evacuate, “I fully anticipated I would find 15, 20, maybe more dead,” he said. “To be honest … I thought we were going to see bodies in the street.”

It was eerily quiet, Adams said. There was the wind and surf, then thecreaking and groaning of metal structures. In RV parks, they found vehicles strewn about, some on their sides, others upside down, “just kind of rocking, creaking,” he said.

Going door to door, the men called out to survivors. McIntosh would pause, waiting for responses. It was still windy, and “sometimes your mind tries to play tricks on you.”

The morning-after scene was a panorama of lives forever changed.

“You would see very personal items, and belongings, and pictures as you walked through the debris field," Adams said.

“It’s just heartbreaking. It’s hard as a human to not look at those things and just be torn up inside – knowing that those people are going to come back and perhaps they’ll find that picture, but so much of the other parts of their lives were gone. Blown literally away.”

As the crew called out, several residents came out of their precarious shelters. There were a few injuries, all minor.

In retrospect, Adams said, they may have made different decisions had they known what the storm would become. Harvey was evidence that not all can be forecast.

“Contrary to all the technology and satellites and hurricane hunters that flew, Doppler radar and all the things available to the meteorologists, Mother Nature proved, once again, (that it) can’t always be predicted with accuracy,” he said.

McIntosh and Adams have no doubt that evacuations saved lives.

Though record-breaking rains and flooding in the Houston area turned Harvey into one of the nation’s worst natural disasters, no one has been found dead in Port Aransas, one of the towns hardest hit in the Coastal Bend.

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Port Aransas EMS chief Tim McIntosh talks about the damage.
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“It’s miraculous,” Adams said. “We were blessed. I would love to say it was due to excellent planning on my and others’ parts. That hopefully contributed, but more importantly, we were just blessed and very fortunate that we did that.”

McIntosh said God gave the city survival for a reason. He’d had the chance to leave. A longtime Christian, McIntosh prayed over it. He concluded he was to stay.

“I really felt in my spirit, spiritually, that God wanted me to stay and ride it out and be there for the people after the storm,” McIntosh said. “I knew there was going to be a lull before we were able to get other responders and rescuers here.”

How it will affect him isn’t yet clear.

“Since Wednesday last week, (I’ve) slept 14 hours total. So I’m still in work mode," he said. "(I) haven’t been able to sit down and have a chance to take inventory. I wouldn’t know how to answer that at this time.”

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08/27/2017 2:40 -- Corpus Christi, TX Aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in Texas. Port Aransas, a Gulf Coast Texas town, is bolstered by tourism and community ties.
It was struck by Hurricane Harvey late Friday. A Category 4 storm, Harvey’s 132 mph winds blew apart many of the seaside businesses and houses. Two days later, city officials are working to bring back basic services so residents could return to survey what is left of their homes. -- Photo by Nick Oza, Gannett Nick Oza, for USA TODAY

08/27/2017 2:40 -- Corpus Christi, TX Aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in Texas. Port Aransas, a Gulf Coast Texas town, is bolstered by tourism and community ties.
It was struck by Hurricane Harvey late Friday. A Category 4 storm, Harvey’s 132 mph winds blew apart many of the seaside businesses and houses. Two days later, city officials are working to bring back basic services so residents could return to survey what is left of their homes. -- Photo by Nick Oza, Gannett Nick Oza, for USA TODAY

08/27/2017 2:40 -- Corpus Christi, TX Aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in Texas. Port Aransas, a Gulf Coast Texas town, is bolstered by tourism and community ties.
It was struck by Hurricane Harvey late Friday. A Category 4 storm, Harvey’s 132 mph winds blew apart many of the seaside businesses and houses. Two days later, city officials are working to bring back basic services so residents could return to survey what is left of their homes. -- Photo by Nick Oza, Gannett Nick Oza, for USA TODAY

08/27/2017 2:40 -- Corpus Christi, TX Aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in Texas. Port Aransas, a Gulf Coast Texas town, is bolstered by tourism and community ties.
It was struck by Hurricane Harvey late Friday. A Category 4 storm, Harvey’s 132 mph winds blew apart many of the seaside businesses and houses. Two days later, city officials are working to bring back basic services so residents could return to survey what is left of their homes. -- Photo by Nick Oza, Gannett Nick Oza, for USA TODAY

08/27/2017 2:40 -- Corpus Christi, TX Aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in Texas. Port Aransas, a Gulf Coast Texas town, is bolstered by tourism and community ties.
It was struck by Hurricane Harvey late Friday. A Category 4 storm, Harvey’s 132 mph winds blew apart many of the seaside businesses and houses. Two days later, city officials are working to bring back basic services so residents could return to survey what is left of their homes. -- Photo by Nick Oza, Gannett Nick Oza, for USA TODAY

08/27/2017 2:40 -- Corpus Christi, TX Aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in Texas. Search and rescue team at Port Aransas, a Gulf Coast Texas town, is bolstered by tourism and community ties. It was struck by Hurricane Harvey late Friday. A Category 4 storm, Harvey’s 132 mph winds blew apart many of the seaside businesses and houses. Two days later, city officials are working to bring back basic services so residents could return to survey what is left of their homes. -- Photo by Nick Oza, Gannett Nick Oza, for USA TODAY

08/27/2017 2:40 -- Corpus Christi, TX Aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in Texas. Port Aransas, a Gulf Coast Texas town, is bolstered by tourism and community ties.
It was struck by Hurricane Harvey late Friday. A Category 4 storm, Harvey’s 132 mph winds blew apart many of the seaside businesses and houses. Two days later, city officials are working to bring back basic services so residents could return to survey what is left of their homes. -- Photo by Nick Oza, Gannett Nick Oza, for USA TODAY

08/27/2017 2:40 -- Corpus Christi, TX Aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in Texas. Port Aransas, a Gulf Coast Texas town, residents reacts after a Category 4 storm, Harvey’s 132 mph winds blew apart many of the seaside businesses and houses. Two days later, city officials are working to bring back basic services so residents could return to survey what is left of their homes. -- Photo by Nick Oza, Gannett Nick Oza, for USA TODAY

08/27/2017 2:40 -- Corpus Christi, TX Aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in Texas. Port Aransas, a Gulf Coast Texas town, residents reacts after a Category 4 storm, Harvey’s 132 mph winds blew apart many of the seaside businesses and houses. Two days later, city officials are working to bring back basic services so residents could return to survey what is left of their homes. -- Photo by Nick Oza, Gannett Nick Oza, for USA TODAY

08/27/2017 2:40 -- Corpus Christi, TX Aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in Texas. Port Aransas, a Gulf Coast Texas town, is bolstered by tourism and community ties.
It was struck by Hurricane Harvey late Friday. A Category 4 storm, Harvey’s 132 mph winds blew apart many of the seaside businesses and houses. Two days later, city officials are working to bring back basic services so residents could return to survey what is left of their homes. -- Photo by Nick Oza, Gannett Nick Oza, for USA TODAY

08/27/2017 2:40 -- Corpus Christi, TX Aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in Texas. Port Aransas High School was struck by Hurricane Harvey late Friday. A Category 4 storm, Harvey’s 132 mph winds blew apart many of the seaside businesses and houses. Two days later, city officials are working to bring back basic services so residents could return to survey what is left of their homes. -- Photo by Nick Oza, Gannett Nick Oza, for USA TODAY

08/27/2017 2:40 -- Corpus Christi, TX Aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in Texas. Port Aransas, a Gulf Coast Texas town, is bolstered by tourism and community ties.
It was struck by Hurricane Harvey late Friday. A Category 4 storm, Harvey’s 132 mph winds blew apart many of the seaside businesses and houses. Two days later, city officials are working to bring back basic services so residents could return to survey what is left of their homes. -- Photo by Nick Oza, Gannett Nick Oza, for USA TODAY

08/27/2017 2:40 -- Corpus Christi, TX Aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in Texas. Port Aransas, a Gulf Coast Texas town, is bolstered by tourism and community ties.
It was struck by Hurricane Harvey late Friday. A Category 4 storm, Harvey’s 132 mph winds blew apart many of the seaside businesses and houses. Two days later, city officials are working to bring back basic services so residents could return to survey what is left of their homes. -- Photo by Nick Oza, Gannett Nick Oza, for USA TODAY

08/27/2017 2:40 -- Corpus Christi, TX Aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in Texas. Port Aransas, a Gulf Coast Texas town, is bolstered by tourism and community ties.
It was struck by Hurricane Harvey late Friday. A Category 4 storm, Harvey’s 132 mph winds blew apart many of the seaside businesses and houses. Two days later, city officials are working to bring back basic services so residents could return to survey what is left of their homes. -- Photo by Nick Oza, Gannett Nick Oza, for USA TODAY

08/27/2017 2:40 -- Corpus Christi, TX Aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in Texas. Port Aransas, residents, stopped by police due to curfew in a Gulf Coast Texas town, is bolstered by tourism and community ties.
It was struck by Hurricane Harvey late Friday. A Category 4 storm, Harvey’s 132 mph winds blew apart many of the seaside businesses and houses. Two days later, city officials are working to bring back basic services so residents could return to survey what is left of their homes. Photo by Nick Oza, Gannett Nick Oza, for USA TODAY

08/27/2017 2:40 -- Corpus Christi, TX Aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in Texas. Port Aransas, residents, stopped by police due to curfew in a Gulf Coast Texas town, is bolstered by tourism and community ties.
It was struck by Hurricane Harvey late Friday. A Category 4 storm, Harvey’s 132 mph winds blew apart many of the seaside businesses and houses. Two days later, city officials are working to bring back basic services so residents could return to survey what is left of their homes. Photo by Nick Oza, Gannett Nick Oza, for USA TODAY